


The Ravenstag Variations

by AVegetarianCannibal, damnslippyplanet, MrsSaxon



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, standalone chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 05:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7253761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnslippyplanet/pseuds/damnslippyplanet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsSaxon/pseuds/MrsSaxon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would happen if Hannibal found out about the Ravenstag and/or the Wendigo?</p>
<p>We wanted to know, and, well, <a href="http://avegetariancannibal.tumblr.com/post/144375753264/sohowmuchwouldhannibalbeheavybreathing">the conversation spiraled out of control a bit</a>, so here we are exploring some different ways this might have gone down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Figure in the Carpet

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter, set in season one, is by MrsSaxon. Second, set in season two, is by damnslippyplanet. AVegetarianCannibal will be along with a third when time, life, and the Ravenstag Muse permit, but that might be a little while, so we wanted to go ahead and share with you what we'd been working on so far. Enjoy, with love from a trio of Fannibals who have too many Ravenstag feelings. Rating and tags subject to change depending on what the Ravenstag Muse tells AVC to do with the last chapter.

“Good evening, Will,” Hannibal opened his door promptly at 7:30, greeting his last patient, “please, come in.”

“Good evening, doctor,” Will nodded gratefully, entering the sanctuary without reverence. Unburdening was getting easier and easier, he might even call it therapeutic.

“Did you have an easy journey?” the doctor asked, closing the door behind him, “These days it’s already dark by the time you step into my office and I always hate traveling at twilight.”

Will shrugged at the small talk, “I try not to see anything in those long shadows that isn’t there,” he smirked over at his therapist, just to catch Hannibal smiling at him.

He sat down in his usual chair, taking in the cavernous room as he prepared himself for today’s confession. Rather than settle on Hannibal, however, his eye was drawn to a small bronze figure across the room. He recognized it from weeks ago, it had been identified as the cause of death for Tobias Budge. Looking at it now, it struck him as merciful that Tobias had only grappled with its weight and not the sharp spikes of the antlers. He might have been mounted on it, in another life, in another room.

“I see you’re fascinated with my statue of a stag,” Hannibal interrupted, sitting down across from him, “Feeling the call of the wild, Will?”

Will’s lips quirked, but his eyes didn’t leave the statue, “You ever get that prickling sensation of familiarity when you see someone… or something.”

Hannibal’s head tilted, “You are speaking of déjà vu?”

Will shook his head, “No, no… It’s more straight forward than that. It’s not that I don’t have context, I know where I’ve seen that stag: in my dreams.”

Hannibal’s eyebrows rose, “You’ve seen my stag in your dreams?”

“Well, not _that_ stag, but _a_ stag, yes,” Will finally turned to him, resettling in his chair with his shift in focus.

Hannibal’s fingers lingered on the journal and pen he was holding, tapping the glossy cover as his lips pouted, considering how best to steer Will. Will waited and watched him tuck the journal under his arm, his lips moving, bending, arriving at conviction, “Stags have remained prominent figures in symbolism across cultures for over a thousand years. They span everything from strength and masculinity to the regenerative cycle of nature.”

Will snorted, “Hard to imagine this stag having anything to do with regenerative powers. I’m not dreaming of Bambi.”

Hannibal cocked his head, his legs considering unfolding to lean forward, before thinking better of it and remaining still. “Describe it to me,” he entreated.

Will drew a deep breath, picturing his, now familiar, charcoal friend, “Tall, big enough that I can look it in the eye. The fur is all matted, but feathered like… well, feathers actually. And it’s black, but… iridescent, like an oil slick. It’s only truly black in the moonlight.”

Hannibal sucked in a breath and Will looked up, catching him chewing his lips, his eyes hooded from the light. “He sounds a handsome fellow,” the doctor murmured, lips curling playfully, “When did you start seeing him?”

The question triggered back memory after memory. He had dreamed of this stag more times than he had counted on. The original memory finally shook loose: a great, majestic beast, bowing in greeting, a knock at the door. “Actually… come to think of it, it wasn’t long after I met you,” Will settled his face in his hands, frowning at the chair legs.

“And you see this stag often?” Hannibal murmured, voice pitched low, like he had just swallowed.

“Mm,” Will neither agreed nor disagreed, “What did uh… what did Jung have to say about recurring dreams?” He looked up, leaning back and changing the subject.

Hannibal chuckled, “Very little, Jung’s thoughts were based more in fantasy than reality. A recurring dream is mostoften your body attempting to deal with stress that is otherwise too much for your conscious self to handle. They can be quite beneficial, your unconscious self trying to problem solve or warn you. But I would be concerned about the frequency of this dream, if it is frequent,” he paused and repeated, “How often do you see this stag?”

Will swallowed, gripping the arm of the chair for a moment, “Almost every time I close my eyes.”

“What does the stag want from you?”

“Nothing,” Will blinked, “It just wants me to follow it… to understand, I think.”

“Then it symbolizes something unique to you,” Hannibal breathed, “a conflict unique to you. Tell me, what do you think it means?”

Will shrugged, shaking his head slowly, “I don’t know.”

Hannibal looked away, his fingers slowly turning over the pen he was holding, “It could be related to your lost time.”

Will nodded, “Funny you should say that.”

“Why?” Hannibal turned back to him, straightening in his chair.

“This stag seems to… be trying to help me understand when I sleep and when I wake,” Will’s eyes drew patterns in the carpet, “Like a totem, if I see it, I know this is a dream.”

Hannibal lips drew up, “Amongst its other roles, the stag is sometimes characterized as a guide between the sleeping and the waking world. It seems your stag is, indeed, trying to help you. I am glad you have found another paddle in your unconscious world, Will.”

Will let himself smile at the doctor’s encouragement and their conversation veered off into more concrete topics, investigations at the bureau, the more tangible aspects of Will’s sleeping habits. The hour continued in pleasant, if subdued, conversation.

“Thank you, as always Dr. Lecter, for your time,” Will stood to leave.

“As you know, Will, thanks are never needed,” Hannibal stood after him, buttoning his jacket, head bowed humbly, “You will tell me if you learn what your stag is trying to tell you?”

Will nodded and turned to leave, mumbling his goodbye. Hannibal had seemed peculiarly taken with the creature, Will had noticed. That was why he’d decided to stop talking. That was why he didn’t tell him everything. He’d left out another figure, also antlered, also black, a man, too tall to be a satyr… a wendigo. Dr. Lecter didn’t need to know about him yet. Dr. Lecter didn’t need to know about him ever.

* * *

As Hannibal sat down to his dinner a few days later, he found himself thinking of Will over his ‘venison.’ The deer, young and spritely, was served with macerated blackberries, beets, cabbage, in a fine shallot glaze; the flavors pungent and earthy, yet strangely sweet, the aesthetics, a deep, lusty red against the green underbrush of root leaves. The dish was inspired exclusively by Will’s stag.

Will’s description had… intrigued him. Recurring dreams were always fascinating for what they told about a patient, as always, doubly so in Will’s case. That Will’s dreams had less to do with his anxieties and more to do with problem-solving was even more interesting. Perhaps the stag was his subconscious protecting itself, guarding Will’s sanity against the warping and twisting and fire. But the fire was coming still. He wondered how that sentinel would fare when the forests of Will’s mind were buzzing with flame, humming with destruction. He would press Will to tell him more about it.

But then there was the image of it. Hannibal indulged himself, tingling as he thought of it. Tall as a man, a great, deceptive beast, dark and shadowed and black in the moonlight. This was no ordinary guardian of hope and health. Whatever this stag was keeping, and he was as sure as Will that the stag was keeping something, it was not a good and moral self that Will so desperately needed to believe in. Will had been reminded of his stag looking at a murder weapon. Hannibal shivered, again, eyes nearly closing.

He allowed himself to think in words what he’d hardly dared conceptualize, but the symmetry of events begged him to consider. He was inside Will. Even now. Will had looked inside himself and found Hannibal’s creature. The stag they shared in common, intimately. Hannibal almost forgot to chew as he lost himself in thought. His avatar was patrolling Will’s deepest thoughts, with him in places Hannibal himself could never be. And he had not arranged this, he had not planted the idea nor forced Will to acknowledge the parallels. Yet they were there. Not for nothing had he been drawn to Will.

Hannibal savored his next bite, the berries bursting in his mouth with such force maroon juice spilled over his lips. He licked it back. The color still stained him, wine-dark, blood-dark. This dish was for Will. This dish was what they could share. Hannibal swallowed. He must be careful now. Will had revealed ties so deep he could not fathom what they meant. Hannibal could not, in his zealous nature, in turn reveal what he knew about the stag. Will found solace in this stag, let him. The fire was coming soon enough. Let the stag scent the smoke, see the flames. Then let it run mad.


	2. Impossible Things

 

> Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said: ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’  
>  ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen.  
>  ― Lewis Carroll

1.

The first impossible thing is that Will Graham does not disappear quietly into Hannibal’s mind once the doors of the BSHCI close behind him. There’s a place prepared for him in Hannibal’s memories - a beautiful place, with music and sunlight. A cage, but a gilded one. Will should be quiet there; he should not trouble Hannibal’s sound sleep. 

From miles away, Will rattles the bars in Hannibal’s mind.

Will asks for Hannibal; Will promises reckonings. He sings sweetly in his captivity and the notes drip poison.

Matthew Brown takes Hannibal by surprise but he might have let it happen even if he’d been prepared, just to hear the rest of Will’s song.

 

2.

The second impossible thing is not Will in Hannibal’s kitchen, pointing a gun and a mountain of righteous fury at him. It’s not that Will walks away without firing, or that his scent lingers. (He stopped on his way to his promised reckoning to apply the aftershave Hannibal hates. Later, Hannibal will consider what this means and none of his conclusions will be satisfactory.)

It’s not even Will in his waiting room, dressed like a blinking neon warning sign. That much was predictable, if perhaps not the precise timing of it.

No, the second impossible thing happens a few nights later. Alana turns her head, hair spilling dark over Hannibal’s bed, and kisses the new scar running down his forearm. Her lips are sweet and gentle and warm.

The impossible thing is how hard he has to repress the urge to snap her neck at the sharp whiplash-sudden sear of the thought: _Those are Will’s._ Not given by his hand, but they’re Will’s all the same, and they are not for Alana. Hannibal is not for Alana, however beautifully she lies beneath and above him, however fond he has always been of her.

She misreads his flinch as pain, or perhaps unpleasant memory, and he lets her. Lets her apologize; lets her sleep, easy and warm, in his arms.

Someday, he knows, Alana will make her own list of impossible things and these hours in Hannibal’s bed will have a place on it. If she survives him.

He almost hopes she does. It’s unlikely, but not impossible.

 

3.

The third impossible thing is Will himself, slippery and quicksilver, as his therapy resumes.

Will is up to _something_ , and the impossible thing is that Hannibal can tell that much, but cannot quite discern what that something is.

They sit in their usual seats, at their usual times, week after week, and Will talks. Some days he circles topics endlessly without ever quite touching them; other days he gives Hannibal detailed revenge fantasies like gifts. Hannibal can almost smell the blood-spattered snow of Will’s vivid imaginings. He considers sketching his own imagined death at Will’s hands. A welcome-home gift Will could hang over his fireplace and stare at for warmth on cold winter nights.

Instead, he sends Will a different sort of gift.

Randall Tier lands on Hannibal's dining room table with a solid _thud_ , his gift not returned but elevated to something new for them to share. Will lets Hannibal tend to his injuries and doesn’t flinch under Hannibal’s touch.

Perhaps, after all, the third impossible thing is the strange ache in Hannibal’s chest. He doesn’t have a name for it. In all the languages he knows, there is no word for the sparkle of the lure in the last moment when you could still choose not to reach for it.

 

4.

The fourth impossible thing occurs on a night when Will is limned in firelight, slouched low in his chair. He’s full of ortolan and brandy and after-dinner whiskey, telling Hannibal about another one of his ideas for reckoning.

This one involves knives, and Hannibal prefers the ones that involve Will’s hands on him. So he’s paying more attention to the sound of Will’s words than the words themselves. There’s a slur to the words, a roundness as each is carefully pronounced.

Part of it’s surely the alcohol; Will’s indulged more than usual. But Hannibal’s own mouth aches where brittle bird bones have cut into the soft flesh, and he imagines Will may feel the same. There may be blood on his tongue, each swallow of whiskey burning a hundred tiny cuts.

Hannibal can’t tend to these wounds the way he did Will’s others; cannot lay hands where Will is bleeding or offer any succor Will would accept.

Thinking about this, Hannibal misses a beat in the conversation and is only brought back by Will’s chuckle when he pauses and then adds _or maybe I should have just let the stag have you. That fucker’s got some antlers on him_.

He stops abruptly, like he’s said something he didn’t mean to say. Feigned or not, that piques Hannibal’s interest and he draws the story out of Will.

 _The stag_ turns out to be some sort of dream-beast, born from Will’s fever and carried with him still. Large and dark, horned and feathered, with hooves that ring against the ground when he walks. The stag follows Will into dark places and breathes down his neck. _The stag_ , he says, his eyes bright and sharp and heated, _shows up everywhere you do. I_ _didn’t notice that, at first. Figured it out when I was behind bars. I had a lot of time to think._

There is nothing, nothing at all, Hannibal can say to that. He remembers Cassie Boyle, his first gift to Will, but Will’s surely already drawn that connection himself.

 _He’d do it right_ , Will says, swirling the last inch of whiskey. _Just lower his head and run you right through. No hesitation. No inconvenient morality._

Hannibal listened to most of the testimony at Will’s trial, and read transcripts of the rest. There was plenty of time spent on Will’s mental state. Expert testimony, invasive personal questioning. Will’s precious mind flayed and laid bare for people who could never have appreciated it. In none of it was there ever a stag.

The last of the whiskey escapes down Will’s throat before he says _I never told them. I wanted one thing that was my own in there. When I was alone. Someone else’s breathing, with me in the dark_.

Will leaves on wobbly legs. Hannibal should probably call him a cab, but doesn’t. Will has managed to survive Hannibal thus far; he’ll survive an ill-advised drive home.

The fourth impossible thing is how much Hannibal wants to believe that there was once a stag, with Will in the darkness when Hannibal was not. Perhaps there now, keeping pace with Will’s car as it slices through the night. Protecting him. Able to harm Hannibal, but not doing it, because Will doesn’t really want it.

Impossible and lovely, the image of the feathered stag standing guard by Will’s bedside as he sleeps, gleaming in the moonlight, protecting his dreams. There with him in all the places Hannibal cannot go.

 

5.

The fifth impossible thing could have been how easily Will’s flesh parts for Hannibal’s knife, or Will’s face slicked with rain and tears, or how readily Abigail walks to her own death, or how hard Jack fights his, or Alana’s choice to be brave when the moment comes. But it is not. None of these things were certain, but all were within the realm of possibility from the moment Hannibal scented Freddie’s perfume and understood the shape of Will’s design.

No, the impossible thing is movement in the room that is not Hannibal, nor Will, nor Abigail. Not the falling rain, or a car passing by outside.

 _Something_ moves at the far edge of Hannibal’s vision, as he turns toward the door and drops the knife.

 _Something_ breathes a heavy, ragged breath that could not have been torn from human lungs.

Something keens, but that may be Hannibal himself, and not the thing he cannot look directly at. The thing that shines black as blood, the thing with sharp antlers that would be velvet-soft if he touched them. Soft as anything has ever been, in the instant before they shredded him.

Hannibal knows with the certainty of nightmares that if he turns and looks at the _something_ , it will gut him as surely as he’s gutted Will. They could all die together, here, and it would be fitting. Pleasantly symmetrical; loose ends tied up.

The fifth impossible thing is that Hannibal is afraid. Terrified to turn his head and look directly at what he is _almost_ sure is not really there.

 _Almost_ is not _entirely_.

The impossible thing is that Hannibal leaves, that he is not sure how many pairs of eyes watch him go, and that his face is wet before the first drop of rain hits it.

 

6.

The sixth impossible thing is that Will does not disappear into the quiet of the stream. He lives. Across the ocean,  he breathes. 

Perhaps he was protected by something after all. Perhaps when Abigail’s breath stopped, Will was not left alone in the kitchen and the world.

Dr. and Mrs. Fell dance and dine, and talk late into the night about many things. But Bedelia does not touch Hannibal’s scars; she knows they, and Hannibal, are ultimately not for her.

There is a poet, but his eyes are all wrong.

There are feasts, but no bones splintering between teeth.

There is blood, but it scarcely matters.

Bedelia’s silks rustle like feathers. She has a black dress that shines in the moonlight. She is a vision in it, but she doesn’t question when he asks her not to wear it again. Instead she opens another bottle and takes it to bed.

Bedelia’s high heels ring like hooves in the hallways of the palazzo. Every time she comes to him, in the moment before she enters the room, Hannibal believes briefly in the impossible. He hears Will’s voice say _the stag shows up_ _everywhere you do._ He wonders what’s taking it so long.

 

7.

Hannibal waits, not entirely patiently, for the seventh impossible thing.


End file.
